


One Day

by evilwriter37



Category: Every Day - David Levithan
Genre: Anxiety, Chronic Pain, Depression, Gen, personal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37
Summary: A inhabits the body of a person named Archer for the day. Archer is having a bad day.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	One Day

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it would be interesting if A was in _my_ body for a day. I was able to write about my experiences while being separate from myself and it was hella cathartic.

I wake up in pain. It’s an aching, cramping feeling in the body’s pelvis that goes straight through to the core. It travels down, all the way into the body’s toes. And it goes up, up, all the way to the fingers. I am in the body of someone named Archer, and Archer is not having a good day. 

I open my eyes, reach for a phone that’s on the nightstand. It’s early, 6:43 in the morning. The time is terribly blurry, and it remains that way until I open the case on the nightstand and put on the glasses inside. The body still feels tired, so I have a feeling that the pain woke it up. Is this… normal? Or should I get up and tell someone?. Can I even  _ get up _ while in this body? 

I look around the room, accessing. There’s a blue cane propped up on a desk. The memories tell me what I need to know. This is, sadly, Archer’s normal. 

There’s art all over the walls. I take my time to look at it. I recognize actors and characters from shows and movies I’ve watched. A lot of it is in black and white. I access, and find out that Archer is colorblind: red-green in the left eye and yellow-blue in the right eye. It’s rare, but it can happen if the person is born premature. 

I look over at the desk again, and my eyes widen at what I see. A  _ line  _ of pill bottles that take up almost the entire desk. I’m going to have to access like crazy to figure out when I take which pills. Hopefully they’re lined up in the order Archer takes them in. That seems like a reasonable thing to do. 

I hear an alarm going off in another room. So, Archer does not live alone. I lay in bed, just feeling the pain. I’ve felt period cramps before, but this is much worse. And, that is not the only pain to feel. There is depression, anxiety. The body tells me all of these horrible things, these horrible feelings. It is like there is a tangled ball of darkness in the middle of it that spreads black and red out to the rest of it. The anxiety tingles and burns, leaving a sizzling in the stomach. The depression aches, makes the head and chest hurt. I’ve been in sick bodies before. I can do this. It will just be a hard day. 

I sit up with some difficulty, run my hand through my hair. It has been washed the night before, it seems, so I don’t have to shower. Archer is in the body of a female, but he does not feel that way. He doesn’t feel like a man either, but he does like being referred to as he. Trans. I’ve done this before too. Hopefully the other people in the house are accepting of it. 

The body is hungry. I stand, glad that I have the ability to do that. I do not feel like laying in bed all day. A small, white and gray cat comes into the room. What he does next can only be described as yelling. I access and realize his name is Loki. That makes me smile. 

“Hi, Loki,” I say with Archer’s voice, leaning down to let him sniff my hand. I’ve had cats before. Only for a day of course, but they are good animals. Loki sniffs, then  _ mrows  _ and rubs his face against my hand. The memories tell me that I have to feed him and the other cat, Alley Cat, since no one else is awake yet. There are three people including Archer in this apartment: the mother, and the twin sister Lisa. Good feelings come when I access Lisa. Complicated feelings with the mother. 

I head downstairs, knowing that going back up is going to be much harder. I feed the cats and get them fresh water and crunchy food, though it hurts terribly to bend down, so bad that it makes me groan and I am clutching at my abdomen when I come back up, trying to take deep breaths. 

Loki sniffs his food, but doesn’t eat. Alley Cat, (or just Alley for short), is a big tortoiseshell, probably part Maine Coon. She eats eagerly.

It takes some accessing to find where the food in the house is, (there are so many doors), and when I find the pantry, I realize that all the food in it is gluten free. So Archer, or someone else in the house must have a gluten allergy or Celiac Disease. I access, and find that both Archer and his twin have Celiac Disease. Just another thing to deal with. Hopefully I won’t be going out to eat today. 

Archer’s mom comes down to make coffee while I eat breakfast. Luckily, they don’t say much to each other in the mornings, it seems. Archer’s mom asks if he slept well. I respond honestly, saying that I didn’t, that pain woke me up. Archer’s mom makes a sympathetic expression, then takes her coffee upstairs. There seemed to be an office-like configuration in the hallway. Archer’s mom must be working from home.

I was right that the stairs would be harder to climb than descend. It hurts, and I grunt as I reach the main landing. Halfway there. The body does not want to do it, but I make it. It needs its pills. I access, find which pills have to be taken in the morning. Like I assumed, Archer has them lined up in the order he takes them in. I take the morning pills. Some of them, I know. Others I do not. There are pills for anxiety and depression, and other pills I do not know. I need pain medication, and the body tells me it likes Tylenol the best for that, though it does not always work. I wonder if there is a stronger pain medication, but Archer’s memories tells me that he only takes that one at night, so he can sleep. A bummer. I feel like I could really use it. I’m am not used to this kind of all-encompassing pain. Yes, I’ve been in bodies with pain before, but it’s rare that it happens. It doesn’t feel like it’s my normal, not the way that it’s Archer’s normal. His body is craving relief, but the pill is for night time, and I don’t want to mess with Archer’s pills. Those are important. 

After taking the pills, Tylenol included, and brushing my teeth, I get back in bed. The body is exhausted. I take off the glasses, close my eyes. The pain crowds my senses, but eventually, I’m able to sleep.

  
  


I wake again around 11 am. The body is less tired, but it is still hurting. I guess this will go on all day. I get up, get dressed. I weigh my options on what to do today. There isn’t much privacy with the mother working in the hallway. I suppose downstairs in the living room will work best. There’s a laptop on the floor, and a book on the nightstand. There’s also an inhaler and an earbud case. I take all of these things downstairs, access to find out where Archer usually sits. His favorite spot is by the window. I sit, and the couch makes a strange sound. It must be broken. That doesn’t seem to make Archer want to change his favorite spot though. There is rigidity and stubbornness in him. 

Alley comes up to me, meowing in a high-pitched voice. I extend the couch into a recliner, and Alley comes and lays down in my lap. I smile, begin to pet her. Sometimes pets know when there’s something off, know that someone else is inhabiting the body, but this time, they don’t seem to notice. I smile and pet her, find that her fur is as soft as it looks. This cat seems very lovable. 

The twin sister comes sleepily down the stairs. We say hi to each other, and the twin starts talking about a book she’s currently reading. I nod along and try to respond where it makes sense to. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but she seems excited. 

“You okay?” she eventually asks, stopping in her rambling. 

“Um…” I’m not quite sure how to answer. Is she noticing that something is off, that I don’t seem exactly like her twin? “Bad pain today,” I answer. That seems like a good enough excuse. And it’s true. Despite the Tylenol, the pain is still pretty bad.

Lisa nods. “I’m sorry, yo.” 

Lisa eats, and while she does I play some games on Archer’s phone. He seems to be really good at a match three game that involves collecting dragons. I recognize the characters from  _ How to Train Your Dragon _ , and there is a  _ How to Train Your Dragon _ sticker on the laptop. I access, and Archer’s memories tell me that this is his special interest, has been for years. He has other special interests, like geoscience and writing and music, but the memories tell me that this is the main one. So, Archer is autistic as well. I am inhabiting a very interesting person today. 

Lisa goes back upstairs, and Alley jumps off my lap to go follow her. Now having the chance, I open the laptop, access to get the password to get in. There are some video games on here. One is  _ Skyrim _ . I like that game, but if Archer isn’t in the same place in the game as he remembers from before, he’ll know that something was off. So I’ll have to play another game.  _ The Sims _ seems like it will do. I can make a new game, play around, and then delete it before the end of the day. 

Lisa comes back downstairs with a book and a laptop, complaining about how heavy the laptop is and how it never works. I just say: “That sucks.” It does. Archer’s family, despite having technology, does not seem very rich, and more accessing tells me that they’ve had to go to food pantries before and were stunned to find gluten free food there. They can’t afford to get Lisa a new laptop. Archer is lucky, because he was able to sell his violin and only get this one for $300. 

I start up  _ The Sims _ , trying not to think about the pain: both mental and physical. I can tell the pills work, because Archer’s body does not want to destroy itself or scream and scream, but they don’t get rid of the mental illness. Not even close. Curious, I access and find that Archer has been in therapy since he was 10, and on psych meds since he was 12. More accessing shows me that he’s had endometriosis since the age of 11, but he didn’t get an official diagnosis until last year, at 21. That’s not fair, not fair at all. I’ve had to go to doctor’s appointments in some people’s bodies, have even undergone surgery. There are problems with the medical field, especially in how they treat people they perceive as women, and Archer is perceived as a woman. There’s anger there in the memories, anger at different doctors. 

As I play  _ The Sims _ and Lisa sits beside me and reads, I realize that Archer hates his body. He hates how it looks, thanks to a mother that treats eating as if it’s distasteful and bad. He hates how it feels, how it  _ hurts _ . It hurts  _ constantly _ . He wants to get out, escape. No wonder he is depressed. I would be too if I had to inhabit a body like this forever.

Which, I realise, is unfair. I’m only feeling Archer’s suffering for a day, and then I have to give it back to him. I can never truly understand what it’s like to have a whole life like this. I just get a piece of it, a fragment. And today, that fragment is painful and difficult. 

The day feels gray. It is not. The sun is out and shining, the sky is blue. But the pain tints everything with the feeling of grayness. It’s in every sense, every nerve, every move and thought. Even when I am not thinking about it, it is there, in the back of my mind, pushing and prodding for attention. 

I ignore it. I play video games. 

Dinner comes. Lisa feeds the cats, which I am grateful for. The less I have to bend over, the better. It hurts too much to do that. 

At dinner, we talk about current events. I know a lot about them, but I can’t let on that I know more than Archer. I’ve been at protests. I’ve been arrested. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been sick. I’ve been in the hospital. I know the struggles people are facing. I know them firsthand, but Archer only knows them from news articles that he tries his best to avoid. 

The conversation gets heated. The mother says something so blatantly untrue that I try not to laugh. Lisa looks at me, then back at our mother. I don’t know what to say. Lisa raises her voice.

Lisa and the mother get into an argument. I try to stay out of it, begin clearing dishes away. This seems like something that Archer usually does, so no one comments on the fact that I’m not engaging. But eventually, Lisa asks for back up. I stop, dish in my hand, about to put it in the dishwasher. 

“Um…” I don’t know what to say. I access Archer’s memories for what he knows about the current topic. I can’t let on that I know more than him. I finally say something that seems reasonable. The mother gets up and storms away, up the stairs, now that we’ve teamed up on her. I feel bad now, but she was wrong. 

Lisa just sighs and shakes her head. “I hate how this always happens,” she says quietly, almost a whisper. She clearly doesn’t want the mother to hear. “But she’s wrong, you know?”

I just nod, get back to doing the dishes. The body doesn’t want me to, but I push through. Archer does this every day, so I can do it for one. 

After dinner, I sit with the laptop again. Lisa says that the mother has another meeting upstairs. I access and realize that it’s an AA meeting. The mother is an alcoholic. Recovered, but still an alcoholic. That might explain some of the behavior. There is clearly other mental illness there though, mental illness that she doesn’t want to admit to: depression, disordered eating. Archer feels frustrated beyond belief about all of this. 

Curious, I access memories about Archer’s father, realizing I haven’t thought about him at all throughout the day, despite his clear absence. Archer is adopted by his father, a white passing Cayuga Native American. He and the mother got divorced a few years ago and live separately. Archer recently visited and came out about being trans, and it went shockingly well. They hugged. 

That made me feel really touched. I’ve been in the bodies of other LGBTQ people that have not had accepting families. I’ve been homeless because homophobic or transphobic parents have kicked me out of the house. I’ve been hurt by people, physically and emotionally. I know what it’s like to be LGBTQ, and I know what it’s like to suffer from it, but Archer doesn’t seem to suffer all that much in that regard. Good. He suffers enough as it is. 

I realize that I’m going to miss Archer and Lisa when I go to sleep at night. I like Archer, from what I can gather about him, and I like Lisa. She’s caring, chatty, funny. She’s a good sister, the sister that Archer needs. 

The body is very tired, but I don’t want to interrupt the mother’s AA meeting. Those are important to her. I can wait a little longer before taking the night time pills and going to bed. 

Archer was getting many texts throughout the day, from various friends and a partner. I answered them as best as I could, knowing the whole while that Archer would not remember sending these messages. So I tried to be vague, passive, not wanting to change anything in these valued relationships. 

I’m happy when the mother’s meeting is over. The body is in agony and exhausted. It needs its pills. I go upstairs, breathless when I reach the top, heart pounding like I’d just run far. But I hadn’t. Maybe there was something wrong with Archer’s heart too. That’s a little scary, but I try not to dwell on it. I’m sure he’ll get it sorted out. 

I have to access a lot to figure out which pills to take at night. I’m not very good at swallowing pills. I have to take them one by one, instead of all at once. Some of the pills are rather big too.

After that I shower and get into bed, happy to be laying down. The body wants to be laying down, has wanted to for a while, and now it gets what it wants. I play around on the phone for a bit, but am suddenly hit with the urge to close my eyes and drift off. One of the pills, probably the pain pill, causes drowsiness. I put down the phone and take off the glasses. The body is almost too tired to do even that. I roll onto my side and close my eyes. 

“Goodbye, Archer,” I get the chance to whisper. “Good luck.”


End file.
